England hopes after Ireland fail to turn up

Even with their perennial track record for losing Grand Slam games, England will have to surpass themselves if they are to lose another in Dublin next month.

The steward?s inquiry called in the wake of their Welsh bashing at Wembley two years ago and reconvened after Murrayfield last year will be nothing compared to a third were Ireland to follow their alarming capitulation to Scotland by condemning the Red Rose to a Celtic hat-trick.

Had the Irish gone to Edinburgh with the sole intention of convincing the watching English hierarchy that their team would have nothing to beat at Lansdowne Road on October 20, they could not have done a better job. Clive Woodward, of course, knows better than that and there will be no question of his players tripping over their own cockiness, as some undoubtedly did at Wembley.

The surprising ease of Scotland?s win confirmed the Six Nations overview that England, champions in all but name, are a team apart, but they will take greater care to ensure they finish the job off this time and they are marshalling their forces as never before with effect from this morning. For the first time, a squad session will be attended by all 12 Premiership rugby directors and addressed by the heavy-hitters of England Rugby Ltd., the new joint venture company set up to run the sport?s professional elite.

England United starts here. After the years of political infighting which blighted their game more than anyone else?s, they are now as one in every department and that, given the harnessing of their huge resources, ought to make them all the harder to beat.

?I think our whole organisation has moved forward,? said Woodward in Edinburgh. ?Sometimes you learn more from setbacks than you do from success.

?I was pleased with the way Scotland played but there wasn?t a lot to learn from the match.?

Ireland, on the shameful evidence of their 32-10 beating by the Scots, returned home yesterday clutching at two straws of hope, that they cannot possibly play as badly again and that England will somehow do their annual impression of Devon Loch, falling on all fours within sight of the finishing post.

Scotland prop George Graham said: ?You have to think England will win all right but nothing in the Six Nations is ever a dead cert. Ireland will know what?s happened to England over the last two seasons and they?ll want to spoil the party. When you play with passion, anything can happen. Nobody gave us a chance of winning this season and look what happened.?

Look, indeed. Ireland, odds-on favourites to keep winning in the run to next month?s postponed finale, failed so dismally in every respect that Gregor Townsend could hardly believe his luck, that he could fluff two early penalties and still reach half-time leading by a street. ?We weren?t that happy with our performance,? said Townsend. ?And yet we were 17-0 up, which is unheard of for us.? Townsend?s head-to-head with Ronan O?Gara simply deepened the mystery as to why the Lions left the Scot at home in the first place and kept him there when they had an opportunity to summon him for the last fortnight of the tour.

Ironically, O?Gara, given the Lions nod because of his goalkicking, missed three penalties before being substituted. In contrast, his opposite number recovered from an extravagant start to prove there is no substitute for class, engineering three of Scotland?s four tries.

A match Ireland were supposed to have won went so wrong that their solitary try in injury time served only to save them from their worst defeat in more than 100 years of visiting Edinburgh. With his team beaten in every facet and repeatedly forced to shuffle sideways yards behind the gainline, Brian O?Driscoll managed just one flash of magic before contriving to knock-on with no-one left to beat.

The Scots had been suitably miffed at imaginary pre-match slights and their English captain, Budge Pountney, said: ?To suggest that one team should not bother to turn up is ridiculous.?

While he gave no clue as to where such a suggestion came from, the Scots had proved their point and the inestimable Ian McGeechan had worked the oracle yet again.

Ireland were the ones who failed to turn up.

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